SC - Funeral food practices

[HICKS, MELISSA]

In a message dated 9/28/99 3:05:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time, stefan at texas.net 
writes:

<<  the the Sir Wm. Petrie/ingatestone Hall (Yorks.) records?  Do they have 
food >>
 
I used the records of the Petrie household for docucmentation of foods in 
Tudor England.  It has extensive price lists, but I do not have the book in 
my personal library. I did not record the values, but the pantry/kitchen 
stores were diligently kept track of. It would be an excellent source. 

I'm not so sure they would apply to 14th C, however with the differences in 
value due to effects of the plague? In "The Black Death, by Philip Ziegler, 
he reveals that the %s of deaths change the price of food drastically due to 
1- the availability of labourers dropping  resulted in higher wages (a 
ploughman paid 2s a year before the plague earned 7s in1349 and as much as 
10s 6d in 1350-51, pg 236) and  2- the availability of food due to the change 
in the number of  labourers. Apparently, England was so overpopulated at the 
time that even though the plague may have wiped out 25% of the population, 
there were still plenty of labourers to go around ( the clergy by the way had 
the lowest mortality rate as a group (11%)! Give some thought to that one) As 
such they could afford to demand higher wages and there was comparable 
amounts of food to go around to fewer people (good old supply and demand)  It 
appears that the cost of manufactured goods generally rose,the skilled 
labourers were not overly abundant and as such demanded higher wages as well 
(pg 237) , corns(various crops) value remained the same, but many other food 
stuffs ie a cow dropped in price from 9s to 6s 6d, and a sheep from 2s 2d to 
1s 5d in 1348 to 1s 4d in 1349  and  1s 3d in 1350.  It was party time for 
the peasants! OK, maybe not party time, but a big change in many peoples 
lifestyles.


BTW, Ziegler makes extensive use of Church records, death records en masse 
and County Histories. I have found this to be a great source of insight into 
the effects of the plague on the lifestyle and culture (including culinary) 
of Western Europe. Hope this gives some food for thought. :)

Hauviette
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